


Déjà Vu All Over Again

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is all starting to look eerily familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Déjà Vu All Over Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is ALL Amberlynne's fault. Thanks to her for handholding while I wrote.

Amy doesn't usually ask for favors, so when she calls and asks Dick if he can swing by Beacon Hills before he comes back from San Francisco, he jots down the details of the case and agrees without hesitation. 

"It's not Blüdhaven," she reminds him. "It's not Gotham. So they don't need your alter-ego, just your detective skills. I'm going to tell the sheriff that though you've left the force, you still do consulting work for us from time to time."

"How are you even involved?"

"The sheriff is my uncle."

*

Dick pulls on a pair of black jeans and a black turtleneck to scope out the lay of the land; he still takes his escrima, though, just in case. There's a big old burnt-out house on the outskirts of town, right at the edge of the woods; it looks like the kind of place teenagers go to party, or runaways go to hole up, and since missing teenagers are at the heart of this case, he checks it out. 

The house has a haunted feel to it, like the chill in the air is from some lingering ghosts, which is usually enough to attract kids, even if the place looks like it's going to come down around his ears at any moment. There are signs of recent habitation, and recent violence, but none of the graffiti and garbage he'd expect from a place kids use to get high and have sex. He doesn't think kids in the suburbs are that different from kids in the big cities, but maybe he's wrong. His life is no one's yardstick for normal. Then again, given the town's history of animal attacks, maybe it's just simple good sense keeping the kids away. Though he's never associated teenagers with good sense. He's pretty sure that's true even for people who didn't spend their teen years wearing a cape and fighting crime.

Even if someone was living here, it doesn't look like they've been back in a while. Dick's ready to call it a night when he catches movement in the corner of his eye. It's too dark to make out much beyond a silhouette, but it's shaped like a man, about six feet tall, broad-shouldered. Dick melts into the shadows and watches, but the guy just hovers at the edge of the property with his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulders up around his ears. Dick's not Cass, so he can't be sure at this distance and in the darkness, but he thinks the guy looks sad.

*

He's not tired when he gets to the motel (by his clock, the night is still young), so he spends some time reading up on the town, filling in the details of the story Amy sketched out for him so briefly on the phone.

In the morning, Dick checks in with Sheriff Stilinski, deflecting the man's skepticism with his most charming smile and the gift of a large cup of black coffee with an extra shot of espresso. The sheriff shrugs and gives him the files. Dick likes that he doesn't feel the need to do any macho chest-thumping or see Dick as a threat to his authority; he reminds Dick a little of Jim Gordon. One of the deputies shows him to a small conference room where he can read through the paperwork in peace. 

There's definitely something weird going on--not just the animal attacks or the serial killer, though Dick wouldn't be surprised if the two things turned out to be related, given the size of the town and the serial killer's MO--but he's not sure what, yet, or what it has to do with the missing teenagers.

For information on that, he goes straight to the source. And he discovers he's not the only adult stalking the high school.

A guy shaped a lot like the guy he saw last night is standing at the edge of the lacrosse field. In the daylight, he's younger than Dick expected, and good-looking enough to make his leather jacket, jeans, and scowl ensemble work for him. As Dick watches, a couple of the players run up to him but he doesn't look happy to see them. They have what looks like an argument that gets cut short by the coach's appearance on the field. Though Dick's too far away to hear them, he recognizes both the drop it because I said so look on the guy's face, and the way both teenagers are ignoring it, one with his jaw set stubbornly and the other with his mouth going a mile a minute and his arms flailing around like a windmill.

Dick gets distracted for a second by the three girls who saunter into the bleachers, and when he looks back, scowling leather jacket guy is gone. Dick's impressed. Not many people can pull that off in full daylight, and he wouldn't have expected it of a small town drug dealer. 

He'll track the guy down later, though; for now, he turns his sights to the girls, and joins them in the bleachers.

The redhead--Lydia--recognizes him but doesn't fuss; she watches with sharp eyes that don't miss anything, and she turns all his questions back on him without giving much away. She's almost as good as he is at pretty but dumb, but he can see from the way her mouth tightens that she's getting tired of the façade. He hopes she leaves it behind when she shakes the dust of Beacon Hills off her expensive shoes, and he makes a note to warn Babs that she might have some competition in a few years' time.

The blonde--Erica--is predatory, and new to it, all her gestures just a little larger, a little more over the top than they need to be; she hasn't fine-tuned her seductive technique (not that it would work on him right now--he doesn't sleep with teenagers anymore) but she's probably cut a wide swath through these boys and they still don't know what's hit them. 

The brunette--Allison--is more skittish than the other girls, and he gathers she's the very recent ex-girlfriend of one of the players on the field. She has a set of interesting calluses when she shakes his hand, but he doesn't call her on them. Archery is popular with girls these days, especially since The Hunger Games, though in a town where people are being mauled to death by wild animals when they're not being ripped apart by a serial killer, maybe it's nothing more than a smart self-defense policy. Still, he makes a note to look up the Argents; the name is ringing a bell and he can't quite place it yet.

Maybe Beacon Hills isn't that different from Gotham under its skin.

Every time he tries to bring the conversation around to the missing kids, he gets the same impression--they're too sanguine about the situation to not be involved in it up to their eyeballs, even if he hasn't figured out how yet, or even what. He can't get too specific, though, not without raising suspicions himself.

He's not sure there's any connection, but he knows better than to discount his gut instinct, so he asks, "What about the guy who was here earlier?"

"You'll have to be more specific," Lydia says. 

"With the leather jacket and the scowl."

"Derek," Allison says. The other two give her angry eyebrows and she looks down at her hands. "He's not--It's not him," she finishes, though it's sadly unconvincing.

"Derek wouldn't," Erica says, chin raised defiantly. "He's not what you think."

"Of course not," Dick says. He refrains from rolling his eyes, but only because he's had a lot of practice.

It's only after he hacks into the hospital database and reads their records that he realizes there's something more at work here.

*

Back at the sheriff's office, he sits down across from Stilinski and says, "What about Derek Hale?"

"It's not him." The speaker is the flaily kid from the lacrosse field. He lunges through the door, awkward in that way where his sense of his body hasn't caught up with the new length of his legs and arms yet.

"Stiles," says the sheriff, warning and affection mingled in the one word.

"You know it's not him, Dad." Stiles comes into the office, and drops his backpack to the floor before flinging himself into the chair next to Dick. 

"Maybe he's not killing these kids," Dick says, because he doesn't think he is and there's really no reason to leave that on the table, "but he sure looks like he could be cooking meth out at that burnt out house."

"His whole family was killed in that fire," Stiles says indignantly. Dick doesn't flinch at the revelation, but it's a near thing. Nearer than he'd like. "The only thing he's getting up to out there is perfecting his brooding loner act."

"He's not," the sheriff says in a more measured tone, giving his son a quelling glance. "We've looked into him several times. All charges were dropped."

"Because he's not a bad guy," Stiles says, completely unquelled.

Dick raises a skeptical eyebrow, though he's just going through the motions now. "He's a twenty-something year old guy who just happens to hang around with teenagers for kicks?" 

Stiles shrugs. "I'm not saying he's not a creeper sometimes, but he's our creeper."

Dick frowns and hums noncommittally. This is all starting to look eerily familiar.

*

Dick scopes out the woods again that evening, looks at the places where bodies were found, the places where kids were last seen, and tries to put together a workable scenario that isn't completely outlandish. He knows magic exists, knows there are things that go bump in the night that aren't human (or, technically, alien), but he prefers to eliminate the more mundane possibilities first.

Unfortunately, that course of action is rendered moot when the werewolves go tearing past him, on the trail of some kind of half-snake, half-human creature.

He swings himself up into a tree and watches from a distance as the wolves take down the creature, with some help from Allison the archer.

He waits until they disperse before he comes down. Derek Hale is there waiting for him on the ground.

"Chimera?" Dick asks. 

"There was a nest," Derek answers. "They were feeding."

Dick waits, but the guy doesn't say anything else, so he says, "The sheriff know?"

"Not the specifics." 

"You planning on sharing?"

"No. It's taken care of."

"I think the man should know what's going on in his town," Dick says. "Since it's his job to keep these people safe. And he should know what his son is up to, and the rest of these kids. They're going to get hurt."

Derek huffs, a sound that might be laugh. "That's rich, coming from you."

Dick goes very still. "Excuse me?"

"My sister and I lived in New York for a while," Derek says, glancing away. "Some moron tried to mug her once. Then a guy in a costume came out of nowhere, knocked out the mugger, and offered to stay with her until the cops showed or someone came to pick her up. She smelled like him when she got home." He taps the side of his nose. "I never forget a scent." 

"Good thing I smell so good, then," Dick says.

Derek huffs again. "I never did get to say thanks." And then he's gone.

*

The sheriff looks a little shaken when Dick sees him in the morning, but he says, "It seems like _wild animals_ mauled our bad guy." Even if Derek didn't spill the beans, it sounds like Stiles finally has.

"Then I guess you didn't need me after all," Dick answers. "But if you ever think you might, you should give me a call." He leaves his card with the sheriff. Now he's glad he let Alfred talk him into carrying them.

Derek is leaning against his rental car when he walks out into the parking lot. Dick smiles at him and gets a tiny twitch of Derek's lips in response; it's close enough. Dick knows what he means. 

"Your secret is safe with me," Derek says.

"Likewise," Dick answers, and gets an actual smile this time. He fishes another card out of his pocket. "Call if you need me." But he knows Derek won't.

end


End file.
